Dermatológia pre prax 1/2010

Kaposi's sarcoma

The paper presents a case of a 76-year-old man with generalized cutaneous Kaposi's sarcoma. The patient was referred from a dermatology practice to our department in the disseminated stage of the disease in July 2006. Based on the clinical features, Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) was considered during differential diagnosis, however, the histological findings were nonspecific (a presentation of lymphocytic capillaritis). It was not until July 2007, when the patient was readmitted to our department for unresolving skin lesions, that the diagnosis was confirmed by a new histological examination of two biopsies. The above implies that skin manifestations of KS may cause diagnostic difficulties in the bioptic practice since the histological presentation may initially be identical to that in other cancerous as well as noncancerous vascular skin lesions (3, 4). This needs to be kept in mind be for the sake of early diagnosis and treatment and, whenever necessary, repeated biopsies have to be performed.

Keywords: kaposi's sarcoma, human herpesvirus, histological presentation, therapy